NARRATOR: It is a moment of great excitement on Oak Island.
Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton welcome
representatives from Brycon Construction
and Irving Equipment Ltd.
They have come to make the final preparations for what promises
to be the most ambitious and technologically advanced
operation ever attempted--
Mike, how are you doing?
NARRATOR: --in the 223 year long history of the Oak
Island Treasure Hunt--
the installation of a 25-foot deep metal coffer
dam off the coast of Smith's Cove.
When completed, the encircled area
will be drained and then excavated in an effort
to find the elusive flood tunnels,
and perhaps a direct entrance to the Oak Island Money Pit.
But before construction of the coffer dam can begin,
a new access road and platform must be laid out
to allow for the massive equipment,
including a 300-ton crane, to be transported
down to the beach area.
That crane is the biggest item that
will have to be moved down.
And then, of course, it will have to track out.
So we have to seriously reconfigure the path
from 10X down to Smith's Cove.
And by serious, I mean quite serious.
Once this process gets all done, what's your timing look like?
We're thinking it's probably a week and a half.
Aside from that, I think you guys got your marching orders.
And anything we can do, you let us know.
Fair enough? - Yep.
That's no problem.
All right, gentlemen.
Good luck.
NARRATOR: With the new road to the beach completed,
brothers Rick and Marty Lagina are finally
ready to break ground on this summer's most ambitious
and most eagerly anticipated project,
the excavation of Smith's Cove.
Today, the team from Irving Equipment Ltd.
has begun delivering the heavy machines and equipment
that will be needed in order to construct
a massive steel coffer dam.
[truck horn]
They're here.
Well, here we go.
Pretty remarkable, isn't it David?
NARRATOR: Over the next few days,
the team will assemble a 300-ton crane at the Money Pit area
before it can be staged on the nearby beach, where some 2,200
tons of earth have been moved to build
a perfectly flat work surface.
And in a couple of days, that will be put together.
Yep.
And roughly two, three weeks from now,
we'll be down at target depth.
It's cool.
Just think how long it took your father.
We didn't have the technology then.
Exactly.
NARRATOR: Once the crane is in place,
construction can finally begin on the nearly 525-foot
long watertight barrier.
When it is completed, the ocean water will be drained out
and then the entire area, nearly 12,000 square feet,
will be excavated.
This will allow the team to uncover not only
important artifacts, such as the mysterious lead cross
discovered at Smith's Cove last year,
but also possible evidence of an ancient flood tunnel system.
Because of the find of the cross,
we have to do a very disciplined,
archaeologically-driven dig in order to see if there
are other similar artifacts.
We've always thought that there may be a treasure trove
of information in Smith's Cove.
At the end of this exercise, we're
going to know more about Smith's Cove
than has ever been known before.
It's a big operation.
It's scary in a sense.
It's daunting and it's exciting.
There's a story here--
Yep.
--and it's constantly unraveling.
Yeah.
For me, the quest is really to find out
what happened here long ago.
And I hope that there's answers down there.
I do too.